Page 33 of The Bloody Ruin Asylum & Taproom (Sam Quinn #7)

Twenty-Seven

More Questions Than Answers

“Sam? Sam!”

The sound came to me from down a long tunnel, far away and fuzzy around the edges.

“Sam, darling, can you hear me?”

I heard the darling. Clive was okay then. That was good.

Later—I think later—I woke in a softer place. I hadn’t tried to open my eyes yet, but it smelled better too. Clive. It smelled like Clive and not mouse droppings, thank goodness. He must have bathed me.

Blinking, I brought our room into focus. The fire cast flickers of light across the ceiling in the cool dark.

My head still hurt, but nothing like I thought it would if I lived through whatever in the hell all of that had been. And I definitely hadn’t been sure I would. I didn’t know how I had, unless my theory was correct.

“Clive?”

And then he was there, leaning over me. “Hello, you.” He brushed a stray hair off my face with the lightest of touches.

“Are you why my head doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would?” I’d been clenched and panicking ever since I saw him frozen and unresponsive. Seeing him here, impossibly handsome, made my heart beat faster.

“I would imagine so,” he said. “It’s getting close to sunrise, so I won’t be able to keep it up much longer, though.”

“You’re here and so am I. We’re both somehow okay. That’s enough.” Lifting my hand, I brushed my thumb across his cheek. “I love you, you know.”

“I do,” he said, leaning in to give me a soft kiss.

I could just lie here forever, quiet and content, but I needed to know. “What did I miss?”

“Well,” he said, walking around the bed, “quite a lot.” He lay down beside me, propped his head on one hand while his other rested on my stomach. “When you threw your axe into that portrait, it broke whatever spell was holding Vlad and me.

“We followed your heartbeat to the gathering room and found you crumpled on the floor and Cadmael in a daze with the skin burned off his hands. We tried to question him, but he had no idea what was going on. He did finally confess, though, to having been experiencing blank spots in his memory over the last week or so. He was more belligerent to you than normal because he thought you were the one screwing with him, as you’re the only one who always knows when he’s dipping into your mind and the only one who’s ever been able to keep him out. ”

“Huh. Well, on one hand, yay for breaking the spell. On the other, a vamp of his strength and power having blank spots is concerning,” I said.

“We thought so too.” He pulled the covers up so they covered my chest.

“He snatched me from the sparring room,” I said, “and took me to the prince’s study on the second floor.”

“He did what?” Clive’s arm wrapped possessively around me.

“It wasn’t really him. The prince—the one in the portrait over the fireplace—was possessing him, inhabiting him, whatever it was.

He was the prince, and I was a fisherman—I think.

I’m not entirely sure what role I played other than possible suitor to his daughter Cordelia.

The poor thing was already battered. The prince was quite mad, and I believe fae. ”

I thought about it a moment. “I’ve never heard of fae ghosts. Is that a thing?”

“You’d know better than I would,” he said. “So Cadmael was possessed by the ghost of a fae prince?”

“I believe so. I mean, he’s never liked me, but I didn’t think he actively wanted me dead before.”

Clive’s eyes went black. “He cracked your skull and crushed your throat.”

I patted his arm. “I think it would be more truthful to say the prince did those things using Cadmael. I hoped the fae blade would break the connection, maybe even kill off what was left of the prince. By the time I made it to the gathering room with it, though, Cadmael was there, staring at the portrait. He had me by the neck when I threw the axe. Now you tell me the rest.”

Clive closed his eyes and gently kissed the side of my head.

When he opened them again, they were back to stormy gray.

“The axe was in the portrait. The skin of Cadmael’s hands had been burned off, so we wondered if he was the one who’d thrown the fae blade or if he was trying to free it.

Since we scented the blade on your hands, we assumed you’d put it there, so we left it where you put it. ”

“Good,” I said.

“I swear, Sam, we are never again traveling out of San Francisco without a healer.” Leaning forward, he rested his lips against the side of my head. “I can take away your pain, but I can’t heal you. I called Lilah to see if she knew a healer in Budapest.”

I tapped his arm. “But you’re not allowed to tell anyone where the Guild is.”

“Darling, Vlad and I put paid to that when we killed everyone in that room. There are now only a handful of Counselors in the world: Cadmael, Vlad, and the ones who weren’t here.”

Grimacing, I said, “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Probably not, but I’d do it again. We’ll figure something out. We have before and we will again.”

“Wait. And you, right? Aren’t you a Counselor now? Vlad said they were just going to offer it to you outright and then you won the competition anyway.” I remembered who he’d been competing against and what had happened to them. “Oh. I liked Oliver. He seemed like a good guy.”

Nodding, Clive somberly replied, “He was.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” he said. “I don’t know how long the prince has been working on Council members, but it might explain some strange behaviors I’ve seen from people I’ve known for a very long time.”

“There’s something powerful at play in this building, though. Maybe the prince’s power is what makes the ghosts so strong. I don’t know why, but I feel like Léna is behind a lot of whatever has been happening here too. Like the ghosts are siphoning the prince’s power and using it.”

I paused, considering. “She came to me as soon as we arrived and showed me what the asylum was. She showed me the abuses, the cruelty, and she led me to Aliz so we could return her to her family.

“When the prince—Cadmael—whoever—smashed my head, she was the one whispering in my ear to wake me up and get me going. She knew I had to do something to stop the prince and she helped as much as she could.”

I started to shrug and realized my shoulder hurt too.

Probably from one of the many times I’d hit the ground today.

“This used to be the prince’s palace. He was insane and horribly cruel with it.

He’s probably been poisoning this place for hundreds of years.

The asylum was wretched. That might have been his influence, an influence that’s also been inadvertently super-powering the ghosts. ”

“This place is cursed,” Clive said, looking around the room.

“No argument from me.” And then I had a thought. “English!”

Clive tilted his head. “I am, yes.”

Smiling, I rolled my eyes. “Not you. One of the biggest issues I’ve had with all these supercharged spirits is that we can’t understand each other.

They show me things and I have to figure out what they mean by their actions, facial expressions, tone of voice, but I could be interpreting it all wrong.

Like Vlad telling me it was Léna’s father who had been raping her.

I couldn’t get that from just watching him dump her off.

“It’s been so frustrating not knowing what any of them are saying.

When Cadmael took me to that room and spoke as the prince, he spoke in English.

So did the servant and the daughter. Maybe because it was all coming at me through Cadmael…

” I looked away from the flickers on the ceiling to Clive. “Did I dream it?”

“Your cracked skull tells me something more violent than a dream happened,” he said.

“Yeah. There’s that, but…” I shook my head. It was still throbbing, even with Clive’s pain relief. Did the prince use Cadmael because he was the most powerful and spoke my language? My brain was too rattled to unweave it all. “How do you know my skull is cracked?”

“I contacted László, the werewolf Alpha, and asked for contact information on a healer,” he said.

“And he gave it to you? He hates us.” I didn’t think I could have brought myself to trust him.

Clive rubbed his hand over my hip. “He still hates me, but he’s softened to you.

You returned his sister to him. I may have also reminded him that you put yourself at great personal risk to rescue all the humans and deliver them to the pack.

It didn’t take much prodding to get the healer’s contact info. ”

“And then you had to take me to him?” I guessed.

“No. I told him to come here. He’s not as strong as Lilah, but he knit the bones back together.” He kissed the side of my head again.

“But now the wolves know where the Guild is?” I didn’t understand why he was so comfortable with that info being out there.

“This site needs to be abandoned. As I said, it’s cursed. Vlad is going through the offices now, making sure he has access to all the information. Cadmael went with him, but he’s still a little unclear on what’s happening, which is quite unusual for him.”

“What if the pack breaks in while the three of you are napping? I don’t think I could fight off an entire pack in my current state,” I said.

“This building has redundant security features. They wouldn’t be able to enter, even if they wanted to. And we’ll be leaving soon anyway.” He tucked the pillow under his head and held me tight. “Let’s try to sleep before the sun rises and my ability to numb the pain goes away.”

My phone buzzed. I looked at it and saw I had missed calls from Arwyn, my psychic cousin on my mom’s wicche side of the family. We’d met each other only recently.

I looked up at Clive. “I’m so stupid. I have someone in the family who can help, and I never thought to call her.”

“In your defense, darling,” Clive said, “I hadn’t thought of it either. That side of your family is new to both of us.”

I hit the redial button and then asked, “Wait. What time is it in California?”

Clive opened his mouth to respond, but Arwyn had already picked up.

“Sam, are you okay?” The concern in Arwyn’s voice warmed my heart. I had family that didn’t want me dead.

“Arwyn, it’s Clive. She has a cracked skull and a concussion. The healer just left.”

There was a pause and then Arwyn said, “Is that right, Sam?”

I smirked at Clive. Arwyn still wasn’t happy with him.

Long story short, I’d been abducted by Finvarra, the fae king, while Clive and I were honeymooning in Europe.

Clive, Russell, and Godfrey broke into Arwyn’s house to get information.

Clive had been a rage-filled vamp and therefore not on his best behavior. Arwyn rightfully took offense.

“It is,” I said.

“I had a nightmare about you. You’re not in San Francisco, are you?” Arwyn asked.

“I’m not. We’re out of the country on vampire business,” I said.

“Interesting. In my nightmare, you were attacked by a dark-haired, dark-eyed man who was insane, and sadistic with it. He felt fae, but I saw fangs at one point. There was a tidal wave of blood washing down the walls of a condemned building.” She paused a moment.

“And there were women screaming and howling. It scared the hell out of me, which is why I kept calling.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate that.” I glanced at Clive. I was pretty sure this was okay to say. “I believe the man you saw is fae. He possessed a vampire to attack me, though.”

“Huh,” Arwyn said slowly. “Okay. That makes more sense. I feel like the fae guy is still an ongoing threat. Is that accurate?”

“Unfortunately, I think he probably is,” I said.

“I see. What do you know about him?” she asked.

“That’s the problem.” I glanced at Clive again. “We’re in a country where I don’t speak the language.”

“Which one,” she said.

Clive shrugged.

“It’s top-secret vampy stuff, but we’re in Hungary.”

She let out a breath. “From what I heard in the dream, I thought you were somewhere in Eastern Europe. I don’t speak the language either, but it sounded Eastern European. What else do you know about him?”

“Next to nothing,” I said. “I heard about a folktale featuring a cruel fae prince who brutalized his daughters. I’m not sure, but I think that’s who we’re dealing with.”

I could hear Arwyn moving around. “This is stupid,” she said. “Let me ask someone who might actually know.” The sound of surf became quite loud. “Good evening, Cecil, Poppy! Wilbur, Charlie, Herbert, I hope you’re all well.”

Her footsteps slapped on the deck.

“My Uncle Bracken is a historian, magical and human. He might know about this guy.”